


Mother of Monsters

by FlightyWren



Series: Let Legends Speak [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Jotunheim, Jotunn | Frost Giant, Multi, Starvation, hunger
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-14
Updated: 2017-05-09
Packaged: 2018-04-14 17:17:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 23
Words: 9,744
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4572978
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FlightyWren/pseuds/FlightyWren
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Before she was a weapon, a traitor, a mother, a wife, a killer, a slave . . . She was Nomansdottir. But Jotunheim was a harsh place and she was willing to do anything to keep her kin alive.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

    Anyone who has called Jotunheim cursed, Angrboða thinks, has never witnessed its winters. Cursed is what they dream to be in the winters. Forests, grazing fields for the herds of mountain sheep, pools of saltwater filled with kelp and fish, they were either damaged or completely eradicated by the war with Asgard and the subsequent removal of the Casket of Ancient Winters. Once flourishing lands are left desolate and bare. There is nothing extra to store away for the winter, except meager scraps that are all used up by the time the last sunrise touches the sky. A family is counted lucky if they survive Jotunheim's harsh winters with only one or two bodies to bury.

   Every year, more and more people leave the land their families have farmed and hunted on for eons to find food elsewhere. But no matter how far they go, there is little to be found. With the Casket gone, Jotunheim has turned on her people and left them scrabbling at unforgiving rock and ice to make their meals.

   Nowhere is this shortage of food more keenly felt than in a small network of caves north of the Syntr Vollr, in the valley below Drepafell, that was once a small village of shepherds and fishers. The cliffs at the base of Drepafell that once fed dozens of herds of sheep are nothing but sheer rock and ice now. What was previously a large lake with a thriving population of fish, eels, and seaweed can be counted on for nothing anymore but tiny clams that barely hold any meat, meager schools of fish no bigger than a Jotunn's little finger, and kelp that grows far and few between on the now barren lake bed. The village was abandoned twenty years previously by all but the inhabitants of a series of small grottos set far into the cliff's side. It is in these grottos that the bastards of the war and their caretaker, Selred, live.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Drepafell - Strike Mountain: a mountain located in the extreme north of Jotunheim.  
> Syntr Vollr - Moaning Plains: a stretch of land in the northern half of Jotunheim that was once a vast grassland and home to numerous nomadic tribes that kept herd animals on the plains. Now called the Moaning Plains because nothing lives there but the moaning of the wind.


	2. Chapter 2

    Angrboða's dam named her so because the fact that Angrboða existed at all both was caused by and brought great sorrow. Angrboða doesn't have any memory of her dam, though Selred says the jotunn that delivered her to him was very handsome indeed and, if that were her dam, she certainly takes after her in terms of looks. Whether she takes after her dam or not is of little importance to her. Most days, especially now in the dead of winter, she is more concerned with surviving until the next day to ponder her dam or—aside from vicious thoughts in his direction—her sire.

   She is far from the only one, of course. Of all the crimes Asgardian soldiers committed once they managed to push the fighting from Midgard to Jotunheim, the rape that many jotunn women suffered at the hands of the invaders was the worst. The Aesir-sized sviemaurr were easy pickings and any of the towering rasafell could that could overpowered were vulnerable to be dragged off in raids and skirmishes and used for the entertainment of the Asgardian warriors. Those that survived bore bastard half-breeds that, at the end of the war, were hidden so far past all other tribes and villages that the truth of them could never be discovered. No one wanted Asgard sniffing around for children they no doubt would want to claim as theirs. They had enough of Asgardians in Jotunheim during the war.


	3. Chapter 3

    Like any of the others with enough wherewithal to aim and shoot a bow and arrow, Angrboða hunts nearly constantly to keep her family's pitiful larders from completely wasting away. It takes a sharp eye and quick reflexes to catch any game. There is little left in the region; what wasn't hunted to nothing has migrated south to more forgiving lands.

   Angrboða has sharp eyes and is quick with her bow. When there's no game to be found on land, she goes to the lake near their home and catches fish and dives for kelp and shells at the lake bed. She keeps herself fed, even when she doesn't find enough food to share with the others. No matter the plenty of summer (which is no plenty at all) no one gathers enough to keep anyone but themselves alive when the cold days come. Each winter is harder to survive. In recent years, they've started to lose those that are unable to last the months that stretch between the last of their stores running out and the first days of spring and new life on the lake. Just last winter, they buried four children between Nepprlys and Fyrstrlys. Angrboða will not be next.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nepprlys - Dying Light; the last sunset before the sunless winter on Jotunheim.  
> Fyrstrlys - First Light; the first sunrise of spring on Jotuheim.


	4. Chapter 4

    It is in the early hours of a mid-winter day, lit only by weak starlight that forces its way through the clouds overhead, that Angrboða can be found on the lake. The others are out as well. Some are on the lake, carefully combing the shore or making their way across the ice field to the thinner areas in the middle. Others are up the cliffs, after the birds that nest there. As Angrboða drops her belts to the ground, she watches the distant figure of Keila dive into the water. It is bitter cold, even to their thick skin, and the ice is only thin enough to be broken out in the middle of the lake, but there is sea grass and slumbering fish to be had on the lake bed and they are all hungry enough to go swimming in the briny lake for what mouthfuls they can find.

   Angrboða crouches by the hole she's opened in the ice. It's frosted over since she stopped to remove her clothes. She checks the pouch about her waist, tugs at the leather to ensure it won't be lost, and takes a bracing breath before jumping into the water feet first.

   The water hits her like a stone wall and forces the breath out of her. Angrboða swims quickly to the surface and stays floating until she catches her breath. She stares up at the sky as she catches her breath. There hasn't been any sun for months; the only sign any time has passed is the movement of the stars as they crawl from horizon to horizon each day and night. It was truly a beautiful thing to see: Jotunheim at night. Lights stretch in dancing ribbons from one side of the sky to the other. Stars chart stories and legends across a black canvas, visible through breaks in the clouds. But now, Angrboða tells herself, is not the time to be stargazing. The sky will still be there when she's found all the food she can and is hungry once more. It will wait to distract her from an empty belly. Now it is time to try to find as much as she can to stave off that empty belly for another few hours.

   She takes a deep breath and pushes off into the water.

   The swim would do her good, if it didn't leave her shaking with exertion and a larger gnawing emptiness where her stomach should be. The hunger is no stranger, neither are the shakes that leave her able to do nothing but lie on the ice floes drifting on the waves after she cuts enough strips of seaweed off the lake's floor to give her the energy to make another dive for more food. Angrboða chooses to view her weakness as a chance to enjoy a glimpse of the false sunrise over the mountains, caused by nearby nebulae that light the winter sky when the clouds allow it. It is a beautiful sight today. Watery gray light filters weakly through the clouds, casting a soft, silvery glow across the land. It is the only light they have when the moons are set and the sun has left until spring.

   Angrboða watches the clouds block out the sky, then part to reveal it, and repeat over and over as she chews on the grass and seaweed she pulled off the lake bed. Her whole body shakes with exertion, even after the grass is gone and she's left trying to ignore the taste of it clinging to her tongue. Her arms and legs quake as if she's run to the farthest branches of Yggdrasil and back. The hunger has carved up into her chest and down to her hips, egged on by the meager offerings the lake has given for breakfast. If she were ever to let her body decide whether she had strength or not, she would starve. She pulls the dregs of her energy together and dives below the water again. Now that she's eaten, it's time to gather the makings of tomorrow's meal.


	5. Chapter 5

   Standing next to each other, Ymsi and Angrboða seem to have only the color of their skin in common.

   Ymsi is the eldest of their family at nearly a century old. His dam was tall, even for a rasafell, who boast towering bodies that can swat Asgardian soldiers off their feet like flies out of the air. They are the Frost Giants of legend. They crushed mortals beneath their feet and waded through the oceans of Midgard as though they were ponds. They stand tall and strong and are the dominant strain of jotunn—indeed, they are what anyone thinks of when they hear talk of Frost Giants. Ysmi takes after this bloodline so strongly that there is truly no indication that he is anything but Jotunn except for the shock of bright red hair he sports. It falls in tight curls to his waist and Selred long ago taught him to pull it back in the braids that the hunters and warriors of the sviemaurr line wear.

   Angrboða is slight indeed when compared to her kin. Where Ysmi is an almost perfect specimen of rasafell, Angrboða is of strong sviemaurr stock. A strong nose, dark eyes, and smattering of impossible freckles are the only things she's inherited from her sire. She barely stands to Ymsi's knee and her inky hair came not from her Asgardian sire, but from her Jotunn dam. Sviemaurr can stand to their chest in a rasafell's footprint—they are often shorter than even Aesir, but their blood carries seiðr and keeps them safe from what would otherwise harm them. Before Angrboða learned to shoot a bow, she lit the caves with silver light that danced on the walls. Now she walks across powder snow without sinking. When something slides out onto thin ice on the lake, she is sent to retrieve it. Aran teases her. He calls her a light-footed fuglávamm and asks her when she will fly away. He is of the rasafell bloodline, like Ysmi. Angrboða laughs when he breaks the ice and falls into the lake.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rasafell - stumbling mountain; the literally giant strain of Jotunn that most people think of when they say "Frost Giant". Unlike sviemaurr, they are incapable of using magic past the frostbite touch that all Jotunn can use. They do not grow hair, tend to be at least eight feet in height, and originated in the southern regions of Jotunheim. The royal family was majorly rasafell until Laufey married a sviemaurr, Farbauti, from the north.  
> Sviemaurr - sting ant; they are much smaller than rasafell and are the line of Jotunn that have the ability to use magic. They come from the northern regions of Jotunheim. They usually grow between five and six feet in height, sport black hair that their warriors and hunters braid to show status, and used to stay to themselves before Farbauti married Laufey and brought the rasafell and sviemaurr closer together.  
> Fuglávamm - a small bird native to Jotunheim, named for the red markings on its chest.


	6. Chapter 6

    The branches of Yggdrasil are as fragile and treacherous as the ice that sheets the lake in the first days of winter. It takes years of practice and a sure, steady magic to walk between realms. Every realm of Yggdrasil has its own stories of those who tried to walk the paths without proper skill. None of them end well. And that's even if the paths can be found in the first place. There are no eyes that can see the paths; incredibly sensitive seiðr is the only way to find a way out of a realm that doesn't require the Banibrú.

   Angrboða picks at the magic around her when she has nothing else to do. She digs her energy into it and pulls. It rarely moves. When it does move, it usually results in blasts that send Angrboða slamming into the nearest wall or skidding across rock and ice. Selred has forbidden her from practicing magic in their caves.

   Angrboða prays that, one day, she'll pick at the right spot and open a way for them to leave this desolate realm. Anywhere, she knows, is better than Jotunheim.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Banibrú - Slayer Bridge; the Jotun name for the Rainbrow Bridge of Asgard. Wherever it touches down, death follows.


	7. Chapter 7

    Nearly straight across the lake from the entrance to their caves, there is a small niche carved crudely into the cliffs of Drepafell. Angrboða found it during a hunting trip ages back. Stuck in a storm that left her stranded on the cliffs, she slid from foothold to foothold until she found a small nook just big enough for her to curl up in until the storm was over. She crawled as far into it as she could and settled in to wait out the bad weather. She hardly got comfortable before the rock wall gave way behind her.

   Angrboða tumbled ass over ankles down a steep incline into the mountainside. She landed on a thick layer of fur and, a moment later, her bow and pack fell to the ground next to her. There's not a week gone by since that she hasn't gone back to the room she found there.

   It's much too small to have been made with rasafell in mind; no doubt the sviemaurr that used to live by the lake hid anything they didn't want strangers finding. The ceiling is low enough it would force Ymsi to bend in two to fit, not that he could get through the entrance, which Angrboda can just barely fit through herself. The place reeked of abandonment when Angrboða first found it. The shelves held expired potions and ingredients. The tables and work benches that weren't knocked over were piled with half-finished work. The fur rugs that lined the floor haphazardly covered old rune stones, small talismans, and other things that radiated magic and were obviously hidden in a hurry. One that Angrboða still refuses to touch, even after she cleaned most everything in the room, is a delicate silver collar that seems to suck all the seiðr around it in as though it yearns for it with a true hunger. The seal on the door that she first broke was hastily done and weak. It broke at contact from the first sviemaurr that found it.

   All her life, the only things Angrboða has truly had to herself are the belts she wears about her hips—strips of hide tied together and decorated with small bits of anything she thinks is pretty enough to keep. Everything else is shared: space, food, warmth, bedding, hunting tools, the list goes on. But she finds this room tucked away in the cliffs, finds this little bit of seiðr hidden away from prying eyes and makes it her own.

   The pelts that lined the floor went straight to her family. Once the storm passed, Angrboða packed as many furs as she could, wrapped the rest around her, and clambered down the cliffs. Little Vigdis squealed at the sight: Angrboða is reported to have looked like a great, hulking bjariste come to crack bones for marrow. She has always thought this to be an exaggeration. Her diminutive figure could never be mistaken for such a beast.

   She cleaned out the room in no time and set about learning as much as she could from what was left behind when it was deserted. Two months after she first found it, Angrboða stumbled across a cache of kennaiss tucked away in a shelf hidden behind a work area. She couldn't make them work at first. She tried for nearly two years before giving in to the inevitable and bringing a stick down to the caves for Selred to look at. He had it lit up and pouring out information in a heartbeat. Angrboða did not pout about that, no matter what Selred said. It was an easy thing to use them, once she learned how.

   Selred's help no longer needed, she never takes the sticks outside of her room. They're far too precious to allow out into the world. They tell of a world once thriving and teaming with life. They give a short glimpse into the life before the Banibrú touched Jotunheim's lands.

   Angrboða thinks of glittering seas and towering palaces and lush forests when hunger steals her sleep and strength and leaves her with nothing but her thoughts. There was a time when Jotunheim flourished. There is a way to flourish once again . . .

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bjariste - cliff shaker; a massive, furry animal much like a bear, native to Jotunheim.  
> Kennaiss - teaching ice; long rods of ice imbued with information that, when accessed, deposit impressions and information into the user's mind. It is Jotunheim's primary form of record-keeping and, given its nature, eliminates the need for a written language on Jotunheim.


	8. Chapter 8

    Angrboða wakes when the bedroll beside hers is disturbed. It's too early to be awake, though the sun won't rise for another few months and is no accurate indication of the time. But she feels it in her bones, in her clouded mind, that it's too early to be awake and so she knows it is even as she props herself up on her elbows and blinks blearily around the dark cave she shares with her brothers and sisters.

   “Narvi?” She whispers. Narvi is the youngest of their group after Vigdis died last year and he likes to sleep wedged between Angrboða and Aran. He's sitting up, staring out into the dark. When she says his name, he turns slowly toward her. His dusky blue eyes are dull and wet. His jaw works on what must be one of the scraps of leather they chew when there's nothing else.

   “Tired.” He mumbles. He doesn't want to wake anyone else. She knows he doesn't mean that. He says “tired” and means “hungry” and she thinks of the small bundle of dried fish in her pack and how it's all she knows for sure she'll have to eat tomorrow. If she gives him any, she'll be the one chewing leather.

   “C'mon, up.” She scrambles to her feet, careful not to disturb her neighbors. When Narvi's weak struggles prove in vain, Angrboða pulls him up over her shoulder and carries him out over their sleeping siblings. She ignores her screaming body and the way Narvi shakes against her from his attempts to get out of bed.

   The ice field sprawls, glittering in the moonlight, before them when they finally make their way out of the caves. For once, the sky is completely clear. After a storm last week that left them holed up in the caves for days, the weather has been calm and peaceful. The moons and stars and nebulae are bright overhead and cast a soft silver light on the wasteland that is their home.

   Angrboða takes a deep breath. Frigid air sears through her head, throat, and lungs. There is nothing but ice and rock in this place that once fed a whole village. Wind howls across the lake, but Angrboða is already quivering from standing so long that it makes no difference. Narvi has settled, sitting on Angrboða's shoulders and clinging to her hair and chin as she makes her way down toward the shore. She holds his ankles loosely. They are far too bony—she and him both and she wonders what it must be like not to be able to count your ribs without feeling for them.

   She maneuvers Narvi into her arms when they reach the very edge of the ice and sits.

   “When Yggdrasil first grew there was nothing on it but branches and leaves.” She points above to the thick swaths of stars overhead, paths of seiðr that only she can see in the night sky. She could walk those branches, if only they were close enough. “It was held up by three roots. On these roots grew three realms: Asgard, Niflheim, and Jotunheim.” She can't point to these realms like she pointed to Yggdrasil's branches, but Narvi stares up at the sky with tired eyes that shine dimly with interest and she counts it as a success. “But it was dark still. So, the people of Jotunheim took the leaves of Yggdrasil they could find and burned them and cast the embers high into the sky. They went far.” she stretches her fingers up, as though she could touch the stars if she just stretched a bit farther. “They went far . . .” Angrboða stares up at the stars, transfixed for a moment. So many embers. So many other realms, just waiting. If she could reach those branches, she could pull herself up into that tree. She could pull the others up after her and take them . . . She shakes herself and returns to the story. “They went far and landed in the darkness around Yggdrasil. They still burn today and give us light where there was none.”

   They sit in silence for a time. The moons continue their slow trek across the sky. Narvi stares up until exhaustion overtakes him. When he truly starts to go limp on her, Angrboða stands and heads back home. She heaves herself to her feet. Narvi twists around to latch his legs around her waist and his arms around her neck. He buries his face in her shoulder and breathes deep the icy night air.

   All is still and quiet except for Rowen's soft snoring and Ysmi's sleep talking when they get back to the main room. It takes some doing to keep from tripping over Aran, but Angrboða manages to make it to her and Narvi's beds without falling. Narvi slides easily from her arms. He curls his knees up to his chin and is about to fall asleep when Angrboða shoves her hand under his nose. She holds the fish out until Narvi slowly takes it and raises it to his mouth.

   Angrboða falls asleep watching him eat her small offering. Tomorrow she'll chew leather and curse herself for being so stupid. Right now, all she can see is the small bit of happiness in Narvi's eyes.


	9. Chapter 9

    There is a village on the southern border of the Stynr Vollr. It is small and almost as bad off as their valley, but they trade well enough to survive. When their little family has anything worth trading, Selred travels south to this village to get food and supplies. If they are strong enough to make the trip, he will occasionally take a few of the children at a time, cloaked in weak seiðr to keep from attracting attention.

   Angrboða isn't strong enough when Selred decides to tempt fate by going to the village to see if they have anything at all to trade. He takes a few of their furs and asks Angrboða to see if she can't find something in her room that might be worth something. She pulls out a few kennaiss that she's memorized and a small stone that likes to fly in lazy circles around her head when she lets it out of its box. It doesn't do much else, but trinkets like that bring a smile to anyone's face and smiles are a rare commodity on Jotunheim. She packs it and the sticks into a small roll and hand them over to Selred when he's on his way out of the caves.

   “Tell them how important they are.” She says before reluctantly letting go of her treasures.

   “I doubt they'll listen, _rimfrost_.” He says. Angrboða bites back hurt bubbling in her chest. “But I'll do my best to tell them.” He gives her a gentle pat on the head, then ducks out of the caves' entrance and disappears into the storm brewing outside.

   The sticks and stone are the first things she gives to keep her family alive. They are hardly the last.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rimfrost - Swedish word for rime or hoarfrost


	10. Chapter 10

    She's curled up in her bed. Her stomach has taken over her whole body; its emptiness crawled out of her belly and into her chest and arms and legs weeks ago. She hasn't left the caves in nearly a month. She hasn't left her bed except to answer nature's call in nearly a week. Ysmi has been feeding her a watery slop made of grass and fish, but it's nearly all water and does little to help ease the hunger. Her body is heavy and hollow at the same time.

   Selred is still gone on his journey to the village. They haven't been able to find enough food for all of them to eat since a fortnight after his departure. They're not supposed to leave the valley, even for food. The sviemaurr that lived here before left enough residual seiðr to keep them hidden from Asgard, but only if they stay in the valley. Keila and Aran left nearly two weeks ago to hunt past Drapafell. Angrboða remembers the fight they had before they went. She didn't want them to go, even as she knew they must if any of them wanted to see Fyrstrlys. Now she stays with the others and prays for someone—Selred, Aran, Keila, anyone—to return before they lose anyone else to Jotunheim's hunger.

   Her vision blurs. Narvi's purplish skin turns fuzzy at the edges and melts into the furs they're buried under. Angrboða blinks hard. She needs to keep her eyes sharp . . . Someone shakes her awake. What is it? She's trying to see what's in front of her. She just needs to open her eyes and she'll see . . . whatever it was.

   Ysmi's hand nearly covers her body as she curls away from the cold that she shouldn't feel. He shakes her again. She forces her eyes open.

   Narvi is staring back at her. His eyes are dull and blank, but his blanket moves in shallow jolts. He lives.

   Someone is shouting from very far away. What do they want? Don't they know she's trying to make sure Narvi stays awake? She needs—needs—Angrboða wrenches her eyes open. She needs to keep him awake. Narvi has to stay awake. Last year, Vigdis went to sleep and never woke up. She . . .

   “Angrboða!” Ysmi's hand nearly covers her whole body; she's curled so far into her bedding she might as well be one with the furs below her. “Selred's back. He's brought food. C'mon, we've got food.”

   They eat that night, taking slow tiny bites and waiting between meals to ensure their food doesn't make a reappearance. Of course, it's days still before any of them can do much more than sit up in bed, but by the time Fyrstrlys comes, nearly a week later, they've recovered enough to climb up the cliffs to welcome the first light of spring. Narvi tucks himself into her side as they watch the sun's weak light peer over the mountains on the other side of the lake. Angrboða will teach him to hunt this year. He won't have to rely on anyone but himself for food again.


	11. Chapter 11

    Narvi's first attempts at hunting are pitiful. Angrboða starts by teaching him to hold a knife and to cut through skin and muscle to veins and bones. His grip is weak. The first dagger she gives him is too heavy for him to hold. It clatters to the ground almost as soon as Narvi's spindly fingers close around it. Angrboða checks the blade for nicks and gives Narvi a much smaller folding knife to start with instead.  
    “This isn't a weapon,” she says as she hands him his new knife. “It is part of your hand.” She pulls her own knife from her hip and flips it in her hand. “We have no claws; a knife is your claw. With it you can gut a fish or bird as easy as anything.” Narvi's hand shakes with his efforts to tighten his grip. “As soon as you can hold it steady.” She adds.  
    She puts her hands over his and has him break her hold to strengthen his grip. She makes small leather balls and Narvi squeezes them as tight as he can when Angrboða isn't teaching him how to use a knife.  
    The first time she catches a fish for him to practice cleaning it, Narvi's clumsy attempts to carve out the putrid guts leave the meat smeared with the fish's waste and bile. Angrboða ignores his apologies as she cracks the thinning ice over the lake and thoroughly washes what's left of the fish. She shows him what he did wrong and when he remembers her instructions, she rewards him with bits of the fish he destroyed. She isn't stupid after all. Where food is scarce, it is the greatest motivator.  
    “Stay on your toes,” she tells Narvi as they follow a flock of birds across the icy stretch of the lake. “Keep your heels up and ready to run.” He does as she says and wobbles only a little. The first time she brought him into a crouch, balanced only on the balls of his feet, he nearly tipped over.  
    “I don't think I'm fast enough to catch them, even if I run.” Narvi whispers as he watches the birds with hungry eyes. They waddle across the ice, confident in the distance between them to keep them safe from their hunters.  
    “Your hunger will make you fast.” She says as she coils her body, ready to strike. “If you don't catch them, you don't eat.”  
    They only actually manage to kill one bird. It's a small thing, not nearly as big as it should be, but they still eat themselves sick on stringy meat and frail bones.  
    When they're done, Narvi asks if he gets to keep the knife Angrboða's given him. She gives him a wallop, says he won't if she has anything to say about it, and promises to make him a knife of his own when he catches something big enough for a bone knife. Until then, she tells him, he'll be stuck with her hand-me-downs. Then Narvi asks when he'll get to use her bow. Angrboða laughs so hard she snorts.


	12. Chapter 12

   Angrboða walked before she spoke and was hitting birds with rocks before she had enough coordination to tie her belts. So it came as no surprise that the first spell she ever mastered was a tricky one rather than something simple, like starting a fire without a flint stone. Well, it was no surprise after the fact. When Angrboða was attempting to relay a story from her kennaiss and suddenly her magic took a shape she didn't know she wanted it to and their caves were transformed into the forest she'd seen in the ice—that was quite a surprise indeed. But once he figured out what happened, Selred laughed and clapped Angrboða on the back. She got an extra helping of jerky that night for dinner in celebration and Selred encouraged her to start learning other spells as well. It was nearly five years before she was able to purposefully cause such a detailed illusion again, but she'll always tell anyone asking that it was the first spell she ever cast.

   It took ages to learn to make a flame dance in the palm of her hand without it almost immediately dying out. She's always suspected it's because of the ice in her blood, but Selred laughs whenever she says this and says it's because she tries to put in too much energy too fast and to stop being so impatient.

   Angrboða gets the hang of it after a couple years spent with sputtering sparks on her fingers. Still, that's not before she masters enchantments to make her arrows hit their mark always, to make her knives stay sharper longer, to keep food fresh for later in a small pocket of space she accidentally opened and lost an arm cuff in once. She takes to binding spells with uncanny skill. Whether it's binding someone in an oath or ensuring her pack won't fall apart, despite its fraying seams, or keeping sickness out of their caves, Angrboða learns fast and easily. She stops a spiteful child's voice in their throat and leaves them choking on their words. She finds the energy around the valley that keeps them hidden and reworks it to encompass the mountains beyond and a small part of the plains. She tugs and pulls until the magic promises to keep out anything or anyone meaning to do them harm.

   Angrboða extracts this promise with blood and sweat and nearly twenty years' work, but when it is done, she sleeps easier. Before it was thought to be only a matter of time before someone happened upon them at the right moment and realized what they were. Now there is surety that they will not be exposed. They are safe. Her family is safe. That's all Angrboða's ever really wanted . . . aside from a full belly.


	13. Chapter 13

   Angrboða lays in wait on the crest of a hill. She crouches as low to the ground as she can manage while still holding her bow at the ready. There is no cover here. Gone is the grass that used to grow in the valley. There is nothing to hide her but crumbling rock and unforgiving ice. Still, she holds her position and waits . . .

   Narvi is off on his own for the first time since she first started teaching him to use a knife earlier in the year. She watches from above. If Narvi fails, her arrows will ensure they don't lose their prey. _Something_ drove a small herd of deer up into the valley and they've been tracking it for the past three days. She doesn't know what sent them up this far north—there's nothing for them to eat here; they haven't had a herd of deer in the area since the Casket was taken—but she's grateful. If they can catch even a small doe, it'll be more meat than Angrboða's ever seen in one place before. Her mouth waters at the thought of venison, stripped fresh and juicy right off the bone.

   While she waits above, Narvi has followed the herd's trail into a shallow dell. The deer snuffle at the icy ground up ahead. They're searching for grazing grounds that simply aren't there anymore. Narvi has spent the last hour slowly creeping toward them. They might be hungry and far from home, but the deer will bolt at the slightest hint of a hunter. This will take delicacy . . . Angrboða nocks an arrow and stares down the doe closest to Narvi. He just has to catch her and it'll all be over. He can do it.

   Angrboða braces herself for action as Narvi comes into view. He crawls awkwardly toward the herd, stopping at the slightest of signs that they know he's coming. He has years to go before he can move like she can—silent and graceful across the rocks—but Narvi creeps deliberately along the ground as best he can.

   Narvi is within a short run's distance from the doe. Angrboða's muscles coil in anticipation. There is a split second where all she hears is the howling wind and her heart pounding in her ears. Everything slows—stretches between one heartbeat and the next. And then the world bursts into movement.

   Wind blows up into her face, bringing the scent of the deer with it. Narvi bolts from his hiding place. The deer scatter across the valley like rime on the wind. Angrboða looses her arrow and—


	14. Chapter 14

   Narvi has no ice in him. He takes too much after his Asgardian sire to produce even the ice touch that keep Jotunn safe in times of need. His blood is hot in his veins and his skin nearly burns Angrboða to touch and he has just enough of his mother in him to keep from freezing solid in the winter. His skin is a strange pale purple, his hair is a mess of gold curls atop his head, his are the only blue eyes in their group. He does, despite his strange coloring, bear faint familial lines that mark him as the descendent of a warrior line on his father's side and a laborer's line on his mother's. Angrboða has similar sire marks on her arms, but her mother was a witch through and through and the graceful lines of a mage cut across her belly and thighs and upper arms. Narvi is a child of sun and warmth in a land of ice and death. Angrboða makes sure not to touch him in the frozen nights and wraps layers of fur around his shoulders even when the warm summer months come calling. When his toes and fingers turn blue and his teeth nearly crack from shivering, she prays he'll live long enough to leave this place and find the sun he's meant to live in.


	15. Chapter 15

   It never bothered her when she was young, not being able to leave the valley. It was more than big enough for a babe in her caretaker's sling, a toddler crawling and then running across rocky ground, a child exploring the world with wide eyes and grasping fingers. It's only when she's been to the village on the other end of Syntr Vollr and seen that the world is much vaster than the narrow confines of their valley that the first stirrings of wanderlust make their home in Angrboða heart. Keila's stories don't help.

   Keila has the soul of a wanderer. She and Aran left on a hunting trip ages back and, ever since they came back, Keila has ached to leave again. She tries not to show it, but it's a visible struggle. Angrboða isn't the only one who notices Keila's longing gazes every time she looks out toward Syntr Vollr or up into the stars, where only Angrboða can see the ways out of this realm. She makes up stories about what must happen beyond the confines of the mountains they've made their home in. Keila has a gift for words. She weaves tales of lords and ladies, knights and witches and Angrboða can't help but let them take root in her heart. She learns from her kennaiss about long ago wars and kingdoms and wishes she could have been there, could be out there now in towering cities and sprawling wildlands.

   Angrboða wanders the valley at night and scours the land for a sign of an opening to another world. Selred disapproves of this pass time. Keila tries not to look too hopeful when she sees Angrboða after a trip out into the valley. Angrboða knows that if she ever finds a way out of the valley, out of Jotunheim, Keila will be going with her.


	16. Chapter 16

   Angrboða learns how to bind magic about her to keep her hidden from the Asgard's eyes, even when she leaves the valley on long hunts. It takes some time. Yggdrasil's branches snap back in her face when she pulls them too hard, then loses her grip on them. Selred always clicks his tongue when Angrboða comes trailing in with new bruises and cuts from practicing spells beyond her abilities. But she learns. It takes nearly ten years, but she plays with her magic until she can hide without Selred.

   At first, Angrboða doesn't cross Syntr Vollr. She stays in the mountains and hunts the birds that live farther to the west than she's ever gone in her life. They scramble across the rocks with blubber-heavy bodies that do not fly, wings used for grabbing at the loose gravel rather than carrying them to great heights. She shoots half a dozen on her first trip. Their meat is fatty and filling. Their feathers are fine as her own hair; she braids them into her hair and hangs the pelts from her belts until she returns home.

   She makes a map of the mountains around Drepafell. Every valley, every cliff, every rock is marked in kennaiss and kept in her pack whenever she leaves the valley. She plans to build her supplies and go farther south, in a few years when Narvi's grown a bit more and their family has more food stored away. Keila doesn't like that plan. She wants to go now. In the fifty years since the war, they can all of them count on one hand the number of times they've left the valley. Keila doesn't like that.

   “Take me with you,” Keila begs and so Angrboða does. They pack for a long trip and leave in the middle of the night so Selred can't convince them not to go. Angrboða wakes Aran before they leave. He sleepily agrees to tell Selred that they've gone before he rolls over and sleep claims him again.

   They skirt around the southern side of the mountains, heading east toward a fjord that all her maps say is a three-day journey from Drepafell. Whales used to gather in the deeper waters to breed and then came out toward the neck of the fjord to calve in the spring. Angrboða doesn't know what she hopes to find there, just that she hopes.

   After the fifth day of travel, Angrboða wants to turn around and go home. There is a gaping valley where water must have once been, but it's gone now and probably has been for years. She doesn't know what she hoped to find, but it's not here to find. Keila insists they keep going.

   “We have enough food for another three weeks out before we have to turn back.” She says with red eyes blazing like a fire. “Might as well go until we can't anymore.”

   Keila suggests moving back up, out of the valley, so they can at least get a good view of the land ahead of them. Angrboða agrees reluctantly. They trail haphazardly along what must have once been the water's edge. The rock slants dangerously above and below them, only a narrow path to walk that used to be a slippery wet shore.

   Angrboða fishes her kennaiss out of her pack and reviews the maps they hold. She goes over them for some landmark to search for on the horizon, some mark that they're getting close to the sea. No matter the damage done by the war, the ocean will surely be roughly the same place it was before. She finds a small town that's supposed to be halfway between the end of the fjord and the ocean.

   “It's supposed to be three days' travel from the far end of the fjord.” She tells Keila as she stuffs her sticks back in her bag. “We should see it soon, no matter what's left of it.”

   What's left of it turns out to be the remnants of an old well, the crumbling remains of a massive building, and shallow graves that have been plundered for meat or treasures or both. The rocks that used to cover the bodies are strewn about, but covered in snow and ice and whatever broke in is long gone. They spend the night pressed into a corner in the building. The next day they reorder the graves.

   Fallen Jotun are usually burned and scattered, like the leaves of Yggdrasil. They join the stars to light the way for those they leave behind. Whoever buried this village either didn't have the time for pyres or didn't care enough to build them. They do their best to put bones back where they belong, but it's a lost cause. Eventually, the last rock is put in place and Angrboða puts a small protection over them to ensure an undisturbed slumber before she and Keila leave the town behind.

   Water is first spotted on the horizon nearly a fortnight after they left Drepafell. It starts as a small splotch in the distance and grows until they stand at the edge of the sea.

   Seeing something from kennaiss and seeing it with her own two eyes are entirely different things. The water stretches out impossibly in front of them, a vast deep blue-green that jolts and lurches with choppy waves in the wind. It is huge in a way that she's only seen before in Drepafell and Syntr Vollr. Waves crash into the shore and drag themselves back out into the sea again, over and over. Saltwater sprays up in Angrboða's face and brings the familiar scent of brine and water plants. She simply stands and drinks it in.

   Keila tries her hand at fishing, but there are hardly any fish and there's no ice here to lay on until they come into view. They wade into the water and stay floating on the waves until the sun dips toward the horizon and Keila decides that it's time to make camp.

   They stay by the sea for nearly a week. They find a place, slightly farther south, where they find fish bigger than they've seen in their lives. They spend quite some time shrieking as quietly as possible, so as to not scare off the fish, until Angrboða realizes that they're not looking at fish, but whales, and these ones are actually rather small. Keila insists on trying to catch one.

   Selred's upset at their leaving is dampened when they produce the whale they caught after quite a lot of trial and error. He helps them figure out how to butcher it. They skin it and carefully store the blubber that Selred says can be burned in lamps.

   “What's a lamp?” Brinja asks because the broken shards of stoneware scattered around their old village aren't recognizable as anything close to what they used to be. Angrboða pulls the illusion of one up in her hand. Brinja coos in awe.

   The whale lasts them a whole month. Angrboða makes its teeth into cuffs and necklaces and hangs them from her belts. Keila claims half the jaw for her own and fashions a deadly club from it. Selred instructs them to turn the bones into combs and beads that he'll take with him the next time he goes to the village.

   Less than one month later, Angrboða cloaks herself, Keila, and Aran in magic and takes them out to the ocean again. They don't stop at the abandoned town this time, stay nearly two months, and come back with two whales and a half a school of fish. Selred smiles and pats their heads, but Angrboða can see the worry in his eyes. He thinks they're tempting fate. She thinks they're greeting it head-on.


	17. Chapter 17

   It's entirely by accident that Angrboða finds the path.

   They're out on a hunting trip. Angrboða can only cloak three people at a time, so their party is limited to herself, Aran, and Narvi. They've gone to the ocean and south along the coast for almost a month. The waters are ever so slightly more plentiful here than where the fjord joins the sea. Every day, they wade into the waves to catch fish and whales or into the tidal pools to gather clams and small urchins that grow there. Aran didn't want to get the urchins at first. He didn't trust anything he didn't have a name for. Angrboða teases him, but the only reason she knows they are edible is the kennaiss she's brought with her on their journey.

   Every morning, they pick the beach clean of bits of shells and rocks that they can make jewelry from. Aran has a net of clam shells and shards of urchin skeletons around his hips. Angrboða braids splinters of whale and fish bones into Narvi's hair and paints along her familial lines with green paste she makes from the long stripes of kelp that wash up on the shore at low tide. Aran says she looks ridiculous. She remembers the images she's seen of warrior sviemaurr, painted for ceremonies or battle or just to emphasize their lineage in vibrant colors that freeze to their skin. It's in her blood to wear this. Angrboða's marked her mother's lines in bold strokes and left her father's untouched.

   They've broken camp and are making their way up the cliffs that edge the beach sixty leagues south of the fjord. Narvi thought he spotted birds nesting overhead at midday and now they're heaving themselves from foothold to foothold in search of their nests.

   Angrboða is halfway to the nests when she slips on a patch of smooth ice and falls. She scrambles at the rock, nails breaking on gravel. Narvi screams. Angrboða slams a spike of ice into the cliff and jolts to a stop so hard that she wrenches her shoulder and crashes into the rock and that's when she sees it.

   Set into the cliff face just an arm's reach to her left is a . . . branch. It's the only way to describe it. It reaches out away from her and, as she stares at it, Angrboða can almost imagine she smells sweet grass on the wind. Before she can mark it or think any further about what this thing is, Aran has his hand on her arm and is pulling her up to the ledge that Narvi is perched on.

   It’s another eight years before she can find it again.


	18. Chapter 18

   Syntr Vollr used to have grass. Or that's what Selred says. Once, before the war, it spread from Drepafell nearly to Perle Haf on the borders of the king's land, a thousand leagues from east to west and nearly six hundred north to south. And on those plains, grass used to grow. Selred says it was waist high to a rasafell man and stretched in pale swathes of green and pale yellow across the plains. The kennaiss that Angrboða has seen confirm this. She knows that this grass was strong and supple to be woven into just about anything. It smelled of dust and sun in the summer. A breeze through the blades would make the plains ripple like the lake's surface and come alive.

   It's gone now. As are the red splashes of sour grass and spots of purple and white wildflowers that grew between the taller grasses. Keila and Angrboða leave late in the year and are lucky to find lichen to chew on their way south. They're gone nearly a month and don't even make it halfway across Syntr Vollr before Nepprlys takes them by surprise and they’re forced to go back. Selred greets them with a frown and admonishment for leaving so close to winter, but it doesn't stop them from going again when their stores run out just a fortnight before Nepprlys the next year.


	19. Chapter 19

   The first time she goes to the village on the other end of Syntr Vollr, Angrboða goes alone. She doesn't tell Keila or Narvi or Selred where she's going. She announces the need for a hunting trip and tells them not to worry if she's gone past Nepprlys. Angrboða packs combs and beads and charms to trade if she needs to and starts across the plains.

   Unlike the two times before, she makes sure to leave long before winter sets in. It’s a warm summer that sends her on her way farther south than she’s ever gone before. Mud squishes between Angrboða’s toes two months into the trip and she spends nearly a whole morning stomping from puddle to mud patch, marveling at the slush that’s taken up residence on the plains. She’s never been in mud that she could sink into. The ice in their valley has taken over everything, even the dirt beneath their feet. This stuff goes up to her ankles in places and squelches when she pulls her feet out.

   The sun shines down harsh during the days that are growing longer, turns the plains into swath of blinding light that stretches as far as Angrboða can see. It hurts her eyes; clouds are ever-present near Drepafell. She travels at night for a short time before she decides she misses the sight of Syntr Vollr during the day too much to let the sun bother her.


	20. Chapter 20

   The village is a small cluster of tents that stand on the first hill south of Drepafell. Unrestrained leathers flap in the wind that blows Angrboða’s hair into her eyes and mouth. She squints in the harsh midnight sun as she pauses, a few hundred paces from the nearest tent.

   She’s—she’s never been here alone. She’s always come with Selred. Angrboða’s courage falters, but then the moment is gone. She squares her shoulders and continues toward the village.

   The tents loom over her like Drapafell’s foothills. Bowls and satchels littered around the tents are nearly big enough for Angrboða to sit in. Spears leaning against the side of a nearby hut are taller than she is and just a single one of the leathers stretched across a tanning frame she passes is enough to make a tent and then some for Angrboða. Angrboða stumbles to a stop when a child taller than her runs across her path between the tents and a woman as tall as a tree chases after, shouting. Her footsteps seem to shake the very ground. Angrboða fights the urge to hide somewhere until night and leave in the dark. She can’t bring home food if she’s been squashed by a giant.

   There is no market in the village, just a cleared space with a small group of people ringing the edges. They sit by baskets of skins and neat rows of bone knives and spears headed with whale teeth. A woman is working on a large frame strapped to her back on one end and tied to a tent post on the other. She weaves threads together and pulls the frame’s sticks until a blanket slowly starts to emerge. Angrboða gawks and vaguely recalls that there’s a word for that thing somewhere in her kennaiss. A man bigger than Ymi weaves baskets out of reeds from the nearby river.

   It has been years since Selred has brought any of them with him on his visits here. As they grew and, whatever magic around them stretched to hide them, he became less willing to let them leave the valley. Angrboða can hardly remember this place.


	21. Chapter 21

   She trades beads for fish, charms for sea glass, and combs for stories. The thing making blankets is called a loom. The woman working it is Hawis and allows Angrboða to sit and watch while she weaves in exchange for stories about the north.

   “No one has been past Syntr Vollr since the Casket was taken.” She says as she pulls the shuttle across the loom. Her head is bare as Selred’s and she has a noble’s sire lines across her brow. Like Angrboða, she wears nothing but belts across her hips and charms around her neck. “The air is too harsh; the mountain is unforgiving in its wrath.” Hawis casts a dark look in the direction of Drapafell. Angrboða frowns. The mountain is not unforgiving. It is shelter. It is life. It keeps them safe from Asgard’s eyes. “Are any of the villages still there?”

   Angrboða tells her of the ruin that she and Keila found. Hawis clenches her jaw and responds with a story about Asgardian berserkers breaking away from their troops and ravaging the mountains in the north. She speaks of villages and tribes that disappeared entirely, no one knowing if anyone survived or where the survivors might have gone. There are whispers, Hawis says, farther south of sviemaurr that escaped to Alfheim before Asgard forbid travel out of Jotunheim for anything but trade, but it’s never been proved and there’s no way to follow them now.

   “We trade with them, but they will not allow us to live amongst them any longer.” Hawis gives an experimental tug to one of the threads, frowning.

   This is the first Angrboða has heard of trade between realms since the war. She thought Asgard closed Jotunheim off from all contact from Yggdrasil. In nearly a century, no one has set foot outside Jotunheim. At least, that’s what she knew.

   “We can leave?” She breathes out, astonished. Hawis shoots her a sharp look.

   “ _We_ cannot leave.” She says firmly. “They can come to us. We can go to them, but only merchants and never to stay.” Hawis pauses her work to lay a hand on Angrboða’s braided hair. “Child, it is a splendid thing to dream of a life outside this place, but all you can do is that. Dreams are the only place you will ever see the other realms.” She gently pulls her hand down Angrboða’s hair and returns to her work. “Besides, we can live here. We can eat here. It’s more than I hoped for when the war ended, I can tell you.”


	22. Chapter 22

   Hawis teaches Angrboða how to use the loom in exchange for a small spell that can be woven into wrap to keep it dry even when dropped in a lake. She lets Angrboða know of the next village south: a small clan of shepherds that scrape by with a tiny flock of sheep that dwindles more every year. Angrboða wants to go visit them now, but summer is drawing to a close and she must hurry if she wants to be home before Nepprlys. She rushes home across Syntr Vollr, just making it to Drapafell and the valley below days before the sun sets for the last time on this year. She makes a loom from ribs and decides to see if she can’t get wool from the new village next year. If not, Angrboða has some ideas about her feathers that might work. Or, as she finds out after a few frustrating attempts to fashion the feathers into strands of thread, they might not work at all.


	23. Chapter 23

      The thing is, now that she’s tasted the barest hint of another realm, Angrboða has to go looking for it again.

      Angrboða leaves the valley before Fyrstrlys the next year and heads in the dark of winter to the ocean. Faint stars and brilliant nebulae light the way. Angrboða isn’t stupid enough to try using magic to light a fire or orb. Things prowl in the mountains after Nepprlys, blood-thirsty things that keep Angrboða up at night with her bow and arrows in hand. One small spark of light and they’d be on her in a heartbeat.

      Fyrstrlys comes just a day before Angrboða reaches the cliffs. Pale, ghostly sunlight barely turns a low stretch of the sky a soft shade of dark, dark blue before it disappears below the horizon again.

      She spends the first weeks of summer searching up and down the coast, climbing the cliffs and feeling about with her magic, but it’s all for naught. There is no fragile branch of Yggdrasil, no taste and scent of another realm, no feeling of standing on the edge of a very narrow path into the beyond. She can hardly remember where she even was when she first found it, just that it was at least a couple days’ travel down the coast. It’s too wide a range to do any good.

      When she’s nearly run out of food to last the trip back home, Angrboða leaves the cliffs, but not before making the place she left off, three weeks south of the fjord’s end.


End file.
